Free guide
Free Puebla travel guide
All 12 of Puebla's Pueblos Mágicos on one printable page. Free when you sign up for our weekly email.
- All 12 Pueblos Mágicos, with a photo and what makes each special
- A map of Puebla with each one on it
- Road trips that join the pueblos close together
- The best months to go
- How far each is from the nearest city
- The sights not to miss
- The fiestas worth planning around
- The fiestas month by month
- Where to stay in each
- Made to print or save as a PDF
The 12 Pueblos Mágicos in this guide
Most visited first. The full guide adds the sights not to miss, the fiestas, how far each is by car, and a layout made to print.
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1
Cuetzalan
A misty mountain town in Puebla's Sierra Norte with steep cobbled streets and a strong Nahua and Totonac culture. The Sunday market fills the center, voladores fly from a tall pole beside the church, and waterfalls and caves dot the green hills around it.
When to go: Feb, Mar, Apr, Dec
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2
Atlixco
Atlixco lies below the Popocatépetl volcano in the state of Puebla and is known for its flower nurseries and mild climate. A hilltop chapel on the Cerro de San Miguel overlooks town, and its zócalo is ringed with cafés.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
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3
Zacatlán
Zacatlán de las Manzanas is a highland town in the Sierra Norte de Puebla surrounded by apple, plum, and pear orchards. It is known for hard apple cider and fruit wines, for its clockmakers and clock museum, and for a 16th-century Franciscan monastery beside the main plaza. Outside town is the Valle de las Piedras Encimadas, a park of strangely stacked rock formations. Nahua and Totonac communities nearby keep their embroidered dress and language.
When to go: Feb, Mar, Apr, May
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4
Teziutlán
Teziutlán is a highland city in the northeastern sierra of Puebla, close to the Veracruz border and often called the foggiest city in Mexico. Its Nahuatl name means place of hail, which says something about the cool, damp mountain weather. The city prospered in the railway age and is the birthplace of a president, a celebrated painter and a guitarist of Trío Los Panchos.
When to go: Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov
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5
Chignahuapan
Chignahuapan is a mountain town in Puebla's Sierra Norte, surrounded by pine and oak forest. It is known across Mexico for its blown-glass Christmas ornaments, made in more than 200 workshops that you can visit and shop in year-round. In the center, a brightly painted wooden kiosk with a fountain underneath faces the colorful 16th-century church of Santiago Apóstol. Nearby are hot spring resorts, the Quetzalapan waterfall and a basilica that holds a 12-meter carved wooden Virgin.
When to go: Feb, Mar, Apr, May
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6
Huauchinango
Huauchinango is a city in the rugged Sierra Norte de Puebla, surrounded by pine forest, ravines, rivers and waterfalls. Its historic center has red-tiled pitched roofs and iron balconies around a garden-filled Plaza de Armas, next to the wide dome of the Asunción church and the old Augustinian monastery that houses the venerated Señor del Santo Entierro. The area grows azaleas and other flowers, celebrated each Lent at the nine-day Feria de las Flores with flower carpets, processions and traditional dances.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
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7
Huejotzingo
Huejotzingo is a small city just northwest of Puebla, on the plain below the Iztaccíhuatl volcano. Its centerpiece is the 16th-century Franciscan monastery of San Miguel Arcángel, a World Heritage site with a walled atrium and four corner chapels. The town is known for its apple cider and fruit preserves, and for a four-day carnival in which about 2,000 residents in costume stage mock battles recalling the Battle of Puebla and other local stories.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Nov
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8
Cholula
Cholula is home to the Great Pyramid, the largest pyramid by volume in the world, topped by the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios with the Popocatépetl volcano behind it. The town is famous for its many churches and has a lively student scene next to the city of Puebla.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
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9
Xicotepec
Xicotepec de Juárez is a coffee town in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, ringed by green hills and watered by springs and streams that run through it. In a ravine in town is La Xochipila, an old ceremonial center tied to Xochipilli, the god of flowers, spring, and music. Visitors stroll the flower-filled central garden, shop for jewelry made from coffee beans, and taste the local coffee along with fruit like macadamia, mamey, and passion fruit.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
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10
Tlatlauquitepec
Tlatlauquitepec is a mountain town in Puebla's Sierra Norte, watched over by the Cerro Cabezón, the hill behind its Nahuatl name, which is read as either the hill that colors or the hill that burns. Its Franciscan convent of Santa María de la Asunción dates from 1531 and now serves as the parish house. The surrounding country is rugged and green, dropping from high forest toward the Apulco river and the La Soledad dam.
When to go: Feb, Mar, Apr, May
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11
Tetela de Ocampo
Tetela de Ocampo is a mountain town in Puebla's Sierra Norte, in a region where Nahua communities still live. Its plaza is framed by the 1808 parish of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción and a French-style municipal palace that houses the Los Tres Juanes museum. A hilltop cross gives wide views of the town and surrounding peaks, and nearby outings include the Acocomoca caves, the Aconco waterfalls and the old mining village of La Cañada.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
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12
Pahuatlán
Pahuatlán sits in the mountains of northern Puebla, where Otomí, Nahua and mestizo communities live side by side. It is known for amate, a bark paper still made by hand with a pre-Hispanic technique, especially in the Otomí village of San Pablito. Visitors come for the mountain scenery, the simple church of Santiago Apóstol, locally grown coffee, and a kitchen full of peanuts, wild greens and edible flowers.
When to go: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
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